


A king with no crown

by eonism



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 09:24:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eonism/pseuds/eonism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during season six. Crowley had wanted to begin meeting in public. Raphael had taught Castiel long ago that this was never an empty gesture. There were strings attached to everything, terms and conditions that closed around his neck tight enough to choke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A king with no crown

Crowley had wanted to begin meeting in public. Raphael had taught Castiel long ago that this was never an empty gesture. There were strings attached to everything, terms and conditions that closed around his neck tight enough to choke. Still Castiel knew he had few options anymore, pressed into the corner he found himself in between certain death at Raphael’s hands and Crowley’s efficient new vision of Hell, the promise of Eve a siren’s call somewhere in the dark. He could only hope that he was still strong, still smart, and still noble enough to navigate Crowley’s mounting stipulations and prerequisites, if-nots-then-howsos.

To Crowley’s credit, it was the nicest restaurant Castiel had ever been to. He was used to diners and burger joints, with cracked upholstery and waitresses with plastic nametags and last night’s makeup. That was where Dean always wanted to go and that was where Castiel followed. Sitting on his hands in uncomfortable booths, drinking the glass of water Dean had ordered for him from a straw because Dean kept saying “Act natural, Cas. Just relax, Cas. This is what people do, Cas.” This restaurant was clean and dark and smooth. Everything seemed to be made of metal and black leather, with red lights behind the wide bar and in looming conical fixtures above all the tables. He couldn’t really imagine Dean coming to a place like this.

It smelled of sulfur and decay, under all the polish and the shine, and that struck Castiel from the moment he materialized at the front door. Square in the chest, right to his core, his soldier’s instincts telling him to blow down the doors and the windows and to lay waste to everything here. The hostess was a long lean thing with a face borrowed from a nursing student in Kentucky, her dark hair pulled up in a high ponytail and stringy gold earrings like Christmas tinsel that stopped just shy of her tiny shoulders. (Dean had explained Christmas to Castiel once, not the one that Castiel knew with the Wise Men and Jesus in the manger but the one with trees and lights on strings and fat men in red suits.) When Castiel walked by she blinked blue-to-black and smiled. He could smell her from a block away but he kept his comments to himself and kept his hands at his sides. This was neutral territory. He had signed away his right to be disgusted a long time ago.

There were demons everywhere, flirting at the bar and laughing together at cocktail tables. The red of their eyes told him that these were crossroads demons. Their clothing and jewelry and expensive watches meant that they were further up on the food chain, Crowley’s preferred lackeys from middle-management. It made sense enough. Crowley came from the sales department, and his foothold in Hell wasn’t the strongest. There had to have been some loyalists he didn’t hate having around, if only to bolster his entourage. It didn’t do much for the pit in Castiel’s stomach, the itch in his vessel’s fingertips that told him to destroy.

The smell of ozone burning made the demons quiet when he walked by, the air crackling around him as he moved through the restaurant. Their faces fell, some shrinking away, others getting up and moving for the door, none quite sure what to do with an angel in their den. That much was still satisfying, if only for a moment. Castiel found Crowley in a corner booth at the back of the restaurant, drinking scotch and eating a cut of meat that bled out across his plate. There were demons sitting at either side of him, wearing the faces of two young men, tall, blonde and broad-shouldered. Crowley looked up to see Castiel at his table, and smiled.

“Castiel,” he said, and gestured at the chair waiting for the angel. “Late to the party as usual, I see. Have you met the twins yet? Well, they’re not really twins, but they are wearing twins. Aspiring underwear models, I think, but I love the novelty value.”

“Why are we here?” Castiel asked.

“Because it’s my night off,” Crowley answered casually. “I’ve been simply up to my elbows in shifter entrails all afternoon and I just had to get away. I thought you might appreciate a change of scenery, maybe something a little less dank. Of course there’s still the urine smell, but these demons, they’re all the same, you know.”

“I left the field to meet with you,” Castiel answered flatly. “Talk fast.”

“Good to see you too, dear.” Crowley gestured for the door. “Please excuse us, boys, so my associate may have a seat.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Suit yourself.” Once the twins had left, Crowley pushed his plate away and gave Castiel a disinterested once-over. “So I heard about your little run-in with Fate.”

Fate’s hit-list had been erased. The same went for the souls and Ellen and Jo and the Titanic, and Balthazar lying to Dean and Sam on Castiel’s behalf. No one else could have known. For it, Castiel stiffened. “How did you know about that?”

“I have my ways. That’s one of the perks of being the king of Hell, Sunshine: The ripples make their way to my end of the pond, too. But it seems to me that you’re scrounging around behind my back.”

“I needed the souls. It had nothing to do with you.”

“No, actually, it has a great deal to do with me. The way I see it, you and me, we’re like Reagan and Gorbachev, bringing down this Berlin Wall together. We’ve both been playing nice to get what we want, but now you and your little friends are mucking about time and space to gather forces. That doesn’t exactly leave me in an equal position, does it?”

Castiel took a deep breath, squared his shoulders. “What’s your point?”

“My point is you’re taking a lot of stupid risks, and I’m not particularly fond of the idea that you lot can just rewrite history as you go to suit your needs.”

“I’m fighting a war, Crowley—”

“Have faith,” the demon smiled.

“I don’t have time to wait on you to find Purgatory. I need souls now.”

“And I’m working on it, in case you haven’t noticed. If you weren’t so busy following your little pets around all the time, you could do something useful and, I don’t know, help me find Eve.”

Castiel looked away. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” Crowley said and took a drink. “Like that little picnic where you burned my bones to throw your dogs off my scent? You were practically cooing in Dean’s lap.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” The light above the table flickered gently.

Crowley smirked. “No, I’m right and you hate it. But let’s talk about business shall we?”

Castiel took a deep breath, and, after a moment, took a seat. “What is it?”

“No more snatching up souls in your little blue box,” Crowley said. “I don’t want any of your peons getting it in their heads that they can just zap off to Pompeii or Auschwitz to steal souls for the home team and lead a siege on my front gate. What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine, and it stays that way. Fair?”

Castiel nodded. “Fine.”

“Good.” Crowley leaned back into his seat. “And while we’re on the subject of things we shouldn’t be doing, how about I add the Winchesters to that list? More importantly, Dean?”

Castiel leveled Crowley a cold look. “Are you done?”

“You’re coming apart, Cas,” Crowley said and took a sip from his glass, studied the line of Castiel’s neck. “It’s all over Jesus Boy’s pretty little face.”

“That’s enough, Crowley.” The air between them crackled with electricity. Castiel betrayed nothing. “I’m holding it together.”

“You say that now, but once my back’s turned you’re on yours again.”

“Do not speak such filth—”

“Yes, I know. The righteous hand of God, blah blah blah. And I’ve been quiet about it so far, but you’re wasting all your time following that brat around all four corners when we, quite literally, have bigger cosmic fish to fry.”

“We’re done here.”

Castiel stood, turned to vanish from the demon’s sight, but Crowley set his glass down with an affected sigh.

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” He stood up from his seat, tossed his napkin onto the forgotten plate. “Don’t tell me you forgot. Tuesday is our couple’s night, after all.”

Castiel swallowed. “Crowley.”

“Now don’t be like that, Sunshine. I’ve held up my end and agreed to all your terms, up to and including not putting your favorite little boy-toy on a spit. All I ask is that you do the same.” Crowley got close, breath hot on Castiel’s neck. “And sweeten the pot.”

“I never promised that.” From across the restaurant all eyes were on them, red and black alike. It made Castiel’s face burn as though slapped, shame straining in his voice. “You said once, Crowley, never again.”

“I said ‘Now,’ Cas, I didn’t say anything about ‘Never again.’ And the promise was implicit from the moment you sealed this deal. I’m nice to you, I roll back the order to kill all fine-and-feathered-things on sight and give you some time to straighten out your business in Heaven, and you. Well.”

Crowley smelled the skin above Castiel’s collar, the scent of him, like wind and rain and cotton and Dean Winchester. Dean, who smelled like sweat and leather and gun oil, and had the angel pinned to cheap motel sheets the night before. Because Dean had prayed and Castiel had answered, and they had sex in some dingy little room outside of Lafayette, Indiana the way they always did when they could steal the time. Because Castiel loved the stupid little human, every bit of him, and wasn’t that what all of this had ever been about? For it, Crowley smiled.

“You have to be very, very nice to me.”

“Not here,” Castiel all but hissed. “I will not be degraded in front of these abominations.”

“Ah, yes, but don’t you get it, Cas? These abominations you’re talking about, they’re a new breed of demon. They no longer fear angels, because our kinds have nothing to fight about anymore. You have Heaven and I have Hell, and we’ll have Purgatory together. We’re post-apocalyptic now, and it’s all thanks to you.”

“That’s not what I wanted.” Castiel looked away, avoiding Crowley’s eyes. “I never asked for this.”

“Yes, but it’s what you got. So are you going to hold up your end of the bargain so I can go back to work tomorrow looking for Eve, or aren’t you?” Crowley gripped Castiel at the wrist. “Because, you know, the troops are getting a little restless these days. Maybe a little show of force might be good for morale, don’t you think?”

“Fine.”

In a blink the restaurant disappeared. With a rush of movement it was replaced by the rich interior of the apartment had Crowley kept in Paris, a vacation home topside from his days in sales, all dark polished wood and black leather. Castiel knew it from the last time he had slept with the demon, when he agreed to the first set of terms. With just one little addition, Crowley had said blithely, Just a tiny little sub-clause in our contract, you won’t even notice it. They sealed it with a kiss and more, Because it takes more than just a kiss to deal with the devil, Sunshine, sweating in Crowley’s sheets until he’d had his fill and Castiel couldn’t stand to look at the mirror when he blinked away afterwards. Couldn’t stand to think of it or the deal he’d agreed to, even as he went to Raphael the next day to challenge his brother’s rule over Heaven.

Castiel brought them to the bedroom. It was the one room he remembered with any clarity, because he didn’t want to waste time. Looking around, Crowley smiled.

“Why, Cas. You remembered Paris.”

He slid out of his jacket, left it on the foot of the bed and busied himself retrieving a glass of scotch from the bar in the corner. Castiel took a deep breath and tried not to watch, tried not to feel the waves of fury that tightened inside of him. Across the room Crowley took a seat in the armchair by the side table, took a long drink and set down his glass with an appraising look up and down Castiel’s frame.

Another deep breath. “What?”

Crowley smiled and patted his knee. “Don’t be so coy, dear.”

A lifetime ago, maybe two, when Castiel was a good soldier and he loved God above all else, he would have smeared Crowley’s smug look across his vessel’s face and burned the corruption right out of him. The urge to lay his hands on Crowley thrummed through every thread of Castiel’s borrowed body, but he swallowed it, like he swallowed most things these days – his pride, his guilt, and his good intentions – and stepped forward. Shrugging out of his coat and leaving it to the floor, pulling off his tie until Crowley tutted at him.

“Come on, Castiel, don’t be so petulant. Put a little showmanship into it. I know my predecessors had a soft-spot for the rape fantasy trope, but I prefer my conquests to be a little more…compliant.”

“You think I should enjoy this?” Castiel said, and did as he was told anyway. Just having a say in it made it marginally easier to undo his collar and open his shirt, pulling it from his slacks and slipping it off. “This humiliation?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Crowley laughed softly. “We both know far worse things have been done to you in the past. The quite recent past, I think, if the stink of Wonder Boy all over your collar there is anything to go by. I wonder, though, what would Daddy do if he knew that his favorite son was spending all his time being despoiled by human flesh?”

Castiel shook his head. “I could smite you where you stand.”

“You could, but you’re not going to. Because then you’d never get that shining new Heaven you’re after, and this would have all been for naught.”

At that Castiel said nothing and pulled out his belt, did away with shoes and socks. He kept his eyes to the floor as Crowley watched him undress with a thoughtful tip of his head, the heat of his gaze following the angel’s slacks and briefs to the floor. Up again to Castiel’s hips and his cock and Castiel swallowed, let Crowley’s hands wander up his thighs, the indentions in his pelvis and the spaces between ribs. Let Crowley pull him into his lap with a cluck of his tongue, inspecting every inch of Castiel’s body with a clinical interest.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” Castiel deadpanned, shifting to find a safe perch on the demon’s knees.

“What can I say, Cas?” Crowley said and thumbed Castiel’s right nipple. “I’m a sucker for a tall brooding brunette.”

The rough pad of Crowley’s thumb made Castiel inch away from the contact but the hand on his hip kept him rooted to the spot. Reaching for Castiel’s face with his other hand Crowley kissed him, deep and full, coaxing the angel’s tongue out patiently, licking his way inside. Face burning hot, Castiel closed his eyes and tried to go to another place, somewhere in his memories, Heaven, Tuesday afternoon, the backseat of the Impala. He thought of some little room in a motel just off a long highway, with tacky green wallpaper and stains on the carpets, and of Dean. Dean’s strong hands and his strong back, and the way Dean smiled when something hurt. He thought of fire and burning and Dean’s mouth, his arms and his thighs, and how good he always felt. How simple and how good a body could feel.

C’mon, baby, Dean’s voice in Castiel’s ear, when he had his grip on Castiel’s dick so tight he thought he would explode, That’s it, that’s it.

Crowley squeezed Castiel’s jaw. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

Come for me, that’s it, Cas.

“No sneaking off to your own Private Idaho.” Crowley got a handful of Castiel’s hair and wrenched his head back. “That little trick doesn’t work here, Sunshine.”

The pain caught Castiel off guard in a grunt. When he opened his eyes he saw the mirrors there, across the entire ceiling. Him in Crowley’s lap, naked, shameless, and Crowley’s locked eyes on his in their reflection.

“You like the new addition?” Crowley asked. “I had these put up after our last meeting. It’s a bit tacky, I know. More porn star than my usual flare, but it gets the job done.”

Castiel swallowed. “Am I supposed to be impressed by this?”

“Impressed? No. See, what you’re feeling now is the cold wave of panic, followed by a nice dose of shame. But that’s all a moot point these days, isn’t it? You and me, this is the natural order of things. Angels and demons, Heaven and Hell, all collaborating like a fucked up little extended family should. Well, with the occasional incestuous freebie here and there, of course.”

“Your point?”

In the mirror Crowley stroked down Castiel’s throat, pet down his chest. The angel shivered. Crowley didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

“I’m trying to get you off that high horse of yours, Cas. Watching you wallow around in self-pity gets old quickly, and you’re no use to me distracted.”

“I don’t need to be enlightened,” Castiel managed, and jerked free of the hand in his hair. “I’m doing this to stop Raphael, not to help you.”

“You just keep saying that like it’ll come true.” Crowley sighed. “Alright, well, if you’re going to sit there pouting, you can at least put that mouth to some good use.”

Castiel jerked his chin up, defiant, and said nothing.

“It isn’t going to suck itself, darling.”

The urge to smite Crowley ran hotly through Castiel like a current, but he said nothing about that either. Instead he slid obediently out of Crowley’s lap and onto his knees, opening the button-fly and taking it down. Taking Crowley’s dick out of the confines of his trousers, short and thick and already swollen pink, Castiel tried to focus on what it felt like to have this done to him, how Dean had taught him to do it. He tried not to focus on Crowley’s eyes on him, licking his lips and closing a hand around the shaft to flick his tongue out around the head of it. Licking, swirling, stroking the length the way he remembered doing it once before, on a motel bed while Dean watched through slit lids and tried to control his breathing.

The taste was different, the scent of the demon’s skin brackish and pungent. That was hard to ignore, shifting his grip, unsure if he wanted to make this pass quickly or just squeeze until all of it stopped. After a moment Crowley smoothed a palm across Castiel’s scalp, kind of like how Dean did, but instead of stroking, tugged hard.

“Any teeth and I will slap you, you know,” Crowley quipped lightly. “And I’d hate to make a mess of your vessel’s pretty little face.”

Castiel let Crowley’s dick slip from his mouth, pressed his lips together to wet them. “Try it,” he warned, “and I’ll bury you myself.”

At that, Crowley laughed. Castiel ignored it, closed his eyes and took Crowley back into his mouth, sucking him down as far as he could take it. Up and back down again, twisting his hand around it the way he remembered. The hand in his hair tightened and Crowley didn’t sound quite so smug anymore, his breathing getting faster, making some rumbling approval deep in his chest that Castiel could feel reverberate in the demon’s tightening stomach.

“Do you know what your problem is, Cas? Deep down?” Crowley asked, sounding thoughtful even for his quickening breath. “You feel like you’re a whore. And you are, in the general sense of the word.”

Castiel wanted to wring the demon’s neck, rip him limb from limb. Instead he sucked harder, stroked faster, wanting to make it stop. Go back to Heaven, or maybe Earth, or find Dean and Sam in a diner or on a hunt, and say nothing of this to anyone.

“But mostly, you’re just a slut. See, a whore sells himself for gain, but a slut would do it regardless for the attention, the approval. And that fits you to a tee, Cas: Heaven’s most notorious people-pleaser. You run around taking up these causes to please your Daddy, to please Dean, because you want them all to love you. So you sell yourself over and over, and wrap yourself up in your good intentions, and pray that they won’t hate you when it’s all over with.”

For that, Castiel sunk his teeth in, drawing blood.

For that, Crowley slapped him hard across the mouth, knocking the angel back.

From the floor Castiel wiped the red smear from his bottom lip, spat his own blood onto the carpet. He stared up at the demon standing over him. The air in the room popped and crackled between them, a show of force that made that the walls tremble and windows rattle in their casements.

“Cute. I hope that little show of defiance was worth it,” Crowley snarled. “And of course, you had to bleed on the carpet. Do you have any idea how much that cost?”

Castiel tipped his chin up. “I could burn the entire apartment down, if it makes you feel better.”

“Are you done with the theatrics?”

“I don’t know. Are you done talking?”

“Seeing as I’ve struck a nerve, yes, I’d say so.” Crowley swiped a foot between Castiel’s ankles, pushing his legs apart. “But I’m not finished with you just yet.”

The bed was disregarded for the floor, where Castiel watched Crowley arrange his limbs to his liking in their reflection above. Watched the unfeeling way Crowley lifted his hips to penetrate him in a full thrust with only the gift of his own saliva to soften the burn, the stretch and the ache. It was easier that way, if only by degrees, to watch it happen in the mirror than to have to look at Crowley above him, fucking him to his own greedy completion. To watch and not be there, not fully, half-straddling Earth and thoughts of nights in motel rooms. Even for the pain of it, and maybe pleasure too, a tiny end-note of sensation that made it just tolerable enough that Castiel didn’t burn the demon’s eyes of their sockets.

One day he would, Castiel decided, but today was not that day.


End file.
